


we were both young (when i first saw you)

by singsongsung



Series: tales of an endless heart [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Multi, archie andrews feels wistful, leather jackets will be involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-01 06:08:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10915896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singsongsung/pseuds/singsongsung
Summary: In the aftermath of tragedy, Archie watches his girl next door build a relationship with a boy who's not even from the neighbourhood.Or: Archie's brain is Taylor Swift's discography on loop.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This felt so obligatory after the "wistful glances" in 1x13. 
> 
> Takes off from the season one finale and moves forward. 
> 
> Title from T. Swift's "Love Story."

_I was late for this, late for that  
late for the love of my life_  
\- the lumineers, "cleopatra" 

 

In the hush of the hospital waiting room, Veronica weeps. Her face is bare, no makeup and no defenses, and her shirt is wrinkled. She looks as undone as he feels. 

“If my father - ” She chokes out. “God, Archie, if - I’ll never forgive him.” She sucks in a sharp breath. “I’m sorry,” she says, and he can hear the sobs threatening to spill out of her throat. “I’m so sorry, I’m - ”

“I need some time,” Archie says. His voice does not sound like his own; he can’t feel his lips moving. He sinks into a chair. “Ronnie, I just - I need some time.”

Tears slip down her cheeks, her face crumpling. “You shouldn’t be alone,” she whispers. 

He doesn’t have the strength to fight her on this point. It will be a while until his mother arrives, and maybe - maybe his father is dead. “Call Betty,” he tells Veronica tiredly. 

Her hands hover in the space around him, floating close to his shoulders, longing to touch him, but in the end she resists the urge and he’s impossibly grateful for that. “I am so, so sorry,” she says, and then, after a few reluctant pauses, she goes. 

 

 

Betty arrives at the hospital wild-eyed. Her hair is out of its usual sharp, slick ponytail, messy around her shoulders instead. Her coat is misbuttoned and stains of mascara create shadows beneath her eyes. She skids around a corner and says his name, “ _Archie_ ,” with her heart in her voice. 

He stands as she rushes toward him. Just before Betty’s body collides against his, he sees Jughead, skidding around that same corner, his beanie slapped on his head at an awkward angle, looking just as panicked as the girl who preceded him. 

Betty hugs him so tightly that for a moment he can’t breathe. She clutches him like the power of her hold alone will keep everything together, and whispers against his shoulder, “Arch, I’m so sorry, I’m here, I’m so sorry.”

Archie clutches her back and feels tears fill his eyes. Betty is familiar in a thousand ways: her smell, the feel of her body, the sweet softness of her voice. She is an anchor in the storm that keeps trying to consume them. 

When they pull apart, his cheeks are wet and so are hers, but her eyes gleam with a familiar fire. “He’ll be okay,” she says. “Your dad will be okay.”

“Yeah,” he agrees hoarsely, but he doesn’t quite believe it. 

Jughead steps closer then and Archie drops his hands from where they’d come to rest on Betty’s waist after their hug. “I’m sorry,” Jughead says, those useless words they’ve all been using with such frequency lately. “How long have you been waiting?”

Archie digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I don’t know. An hour, maybe.”

“We’ll stay with you,” Betty says, and nudges him back into his seat. She sits on his right, Jughead on his left, like sentries. Betty takes his hand in both of hers, holding it tight, and Archie returns to staring despondently at the clock on the wall. 

 

 

He remembers, distinctly, his confusion on the day at school that Betty talked softly to them about Polly, the tension in her body making her shoulders creep further and further toward her ears. He remembers watching Jughead reach over, like it was easy, natural, not at all weird and surprising, and give one of her shoulders a quick squeeze. He remembers how it got stranger still when Betty touched his hand, Jughead’s hand, and gave him a look that Archie couldn’t quite decipher. 

Later in the hallway he told Jughead that it was fine, that it was cool, and he had meant it, for the most part. He had no reason to protest: Betty had laid her love at his feet and he’d walked away. He loved her, of course he did, loved her like she was his family, but he’d turned down a relationship with her. He was entangled in so many other things, so many other feelings - Miss Grundy’s refusal to make a confession about the gunshot, Veronica’s sudden, startling, and seductive presence, the guilt he felt about Jason, about sleeping with the music teacher, about letting his father down. 

Betty stood in her pretty dress and asked him if he loved her and he said no. 

He said no. 

 

 

The doctor says his father is in “stable but critical” condition, which sounds both hopeful and terrible. Archie spends some time at Fred’s bedside, holding his father’s hand gingerly, willing him to recover. 

When a nurse tells him, gently, that the ICU’s visiting hours are over, he returns to the waiting room in which he spent most of his day. Betty and Jughead are still there, Jughead having moved into Archie’s empty seat. Jug has a comforting hand against the back of Betty’s neck, fingertips tangled in her hair. Archie can’t hear the quiet words they’re speaking to one another. 

They jump to their feet the minute they see him, and he explains about his father’s condition, about the visiting hours, about how his mother’s flight is still delayed by inclement weather and she’s considering driving instead. 

“Stable is good,” Betty says of Fred’s condition, nodding firmly. “Stable is really good, Arch.” Her eyes are earnest and warm. “My mom said you could stay with us, until your mother gets here. Is that okay?” 

“Yeah,” Archie says, “Sure,” and they fall into step on either side of him again, flanking him as they exit the hospital. 

 

 

Alice makes up a bed for Archie on the couch in the downstairs rec room. She orders two pizzas, one with an assortment of toppings Archie thinks have no place on pizza, like spinach and low-fat cheese and white sauce, the other a large, greasy pepperoni pie. He and Jughead make quick work of the latter while Betty picks at a piece of the first. 

They are relatively quiet, speaking infrequently and passively watching the TV, which is playing a marathon of shows about people renovating their houses. At one point Betty’s phone rings - Archie catches a glimpse of the caller on the screen, the letter V followed by two emojis, a girl wearing a crown on her dark hair and a yellow heart - and slips off quietly to answer it. 

Jughead turns to him after a beat. “Your dad is the last person in the world to ever deserve something like this,” he says. “Fred’s one of the good ones. He’s going to pull through.”

Archie offers him a smile, small but sincere. “Veronica thinks… her father had something to do with it.”

Jughead’s face betrays surprise. “Hiram Lodge had your father shot?”

Archie shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know, but… if he’s involved, the Serpents probably are too.” 

Tensing just a bit, Jughead murmurs, “Right.”

Turning to his childhood friend, Archie glances over his shoulder quickly to make sure Betty’s not on her way back into the room. “You have to keep her out of this shit,” he says lowly. “Don’t let her be labelled as being on their side. It’s not safe.” 

Jughead looks at him with unreadable eyes for a long moment. Finally, he says, “I won’t let Betty get hurt.” 

Archie opens his mouth again, wanting to emphasize how important this point is, but he’s interrupted by Betty’s return. There’s sadness lurking at the corners of her eyes and she sits down in between them, her shoulder pressed to Jughead’s.

“Marble countertops?” she says, her voice full of pep that’s just a touch sardonic, “In _that_ kitchen?” 

Archie offers her a sliver of a smile, and she gives him one right back. 

 

 

At precisely eleven o’clock Alice descends the stairs. “It’s time for Jughead to be going,” she says, her voice firm but free of the iciness that has so often made Archie cringe. “And for you to get to bed, sweetheart,” she tells Betty. 

All three of them nod obediently and say goodnight. Archie listens to their footsteps on the floor above him, to the front door opening and closing, to the murmurs of conversation between Betty and her parents. The sounds that follow are those of a family settling in for the night, light switches flicked, the second set of stairs ascended, water running, doors closing. 

Fifteen minutes later Betty tiptoes back downstairs, now wearing a pair of plaid pyjama pants and a light pink t-shirt. She sits next to him on the couch again and pulls a fluffy throw blanket over them both. 

“Veronica’s worried about you,” she says softly. “And about your dad. She’s hurting.”

He sighs heavily. “I can’t talk to her right now, Betts.”

She nods, looking into his face. “Okay.” 

The couple featured on the current episode of the home-reno show decide, despite the cost, to put a skylight in their bathroom. A tear slips down Archie’s cheek, and then another. 

Betty slips an arm around him, pulling him toward her with a hand firm against his shoulder. He lays his cheek on the pillow in her lap and cries. 

She cards her fingers through his hair in a slow, steady rhythm and on TV everyone oohs and aahs about the natural light over the shower stall. He falls asleep like that, listening to discussions of caulking and colour schemes, as Betty strokes his hair. 

 

 

He spends the next day with his mother at the hospital, keeping vigil over his father, whose condition remains unchanged. It is there that he learns about what Cheryl did, and he remembers her on the river, under the ice, painfully cold in his arms -- was that really only two days ago?

His mother shakes her head at the newspaper. “That family,” she murmurs, clicking her tongue. 

Archie looks at her from the other side of Fred’s bad. “Everyone’s family is messed up,” he says. 

Mary gives him a gentle look. “All unhappy families are unhappy in their own ways, hm?” she asks, turning her gaze to his father. 

“Aren’t we?”

His mother reaches across the bed and takes his hand. “Dad’s going to be fine, honey,” she says softly. “We’re going to get through this.” She gives his hand a squeeze and then releases it, lifting her hand briefly to touch his cheek. “Why don’t you take a break and get some air? I’ll stay here. You can call Veronica and go grab lunch with her.” 

Archie shakes his head. He doesn’t think he’s angry with Veronica, but he cannot yet handle her sorrow, her guilt, and whatever it is that she feels for him, love or lust of something in between. He isn’t ready for that complexity. 

“I’ll stay, Mom,” he says. 

 

 

They both return to the house to eat dinner, and ten minutes after their arrival, as they’re trying to pick between Chinese and Thai takeout when neither of them really has an appetite, there’s a knock on the door. 

Betty is standing on the porch in a dress and woolen tights, her hair in its customary ponytail, a foil-wrapped dish in her hands. “I brought lasagna,” she says, and Archie swings the door open wide. 

 

 

Jughead arrives around seven-thirty, tells Betty, “Your mom said you were over here.” He greets Archie’s mom and asks about his dad and then they part ways - Mary and Archie heading back to the hospital, Betty and Jughead on their way next door to the Cooper house. 

As his mother struggles to adjust the driver’s seat from the height Archie’s dad keeps it at, he watches Jughead and Betty walk the short distance between the two houses. At the end of the Cooper walkway they stop, having a conversation that seems hurried, intense. Betty shakes her head and Jughead cups her cheeks in his hands and kisses her hard. Archie watches Betty melt into that kiss, her hands making fists around handful’s of Jughead’s thin coat, her body pressing in closer, lashes fluttering over her closed eyes. 

His stomach flips and flops. To his left, his mother heaves a frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry, honey,” she says, finally putting the car in reverse to back out of the driveway. 

_Yeah_ , Archie thinks. He’s sorry too. 

 

 

He saw it all play out in front of him: Jughead’s arm around Betty’s shoulders, Betty’s hand on Jughead’s in a reciprocal gesture, smiles exchanged, wan and grateful. He saw Jughead look through his bedroom window into the room where Betty sat on her bed, scribbling in her diary. He saw the two of them in front of the police station, Betty rushing forward, her hand soft on Jughead’s cheek, the way they latched onto one another. He saw them pose for a photo at homecoming, Betty’s smile bright and silly as Jughead rolled his eyes extravagantly. He saw Betty charge through their school, through their town, Jughead’s staunch defender, saw her rush out of Riverdale High and straight to the high school on the South side. He saw Betty turn her face into Jughead’s shoulder, into his neck, into his hold, time and time again, seeking comfort. 

Archie saw them act like a couple - hand in hand, lips on lips, arms around waists and shoulders. He saw it and he wasn’t jealous because he loves Betty, and he loves Jughead, and these past months had been nothing but hard on them both. He saw it and he even supported it but he’d never quite _believed_ it. 

Because Betty Cooper in her pretty pink dress had laid her love at his feet, and yes, he’d turned away, and yes, he’d broken her heart, but her love had been there, between the houses they’d grown up in, and when he’d walked away and left it behind he’d thought it would stay there, where it had always been. He hadn’t thought Betty would come back for it, hadn’t thought she’d pick it up like an untended flower and hand it to Jughead, and he _definitely_ hadn’t thought Jughead would know how to care for it. 

He saw it all play out, but he missed the moment when Betty ceased to look at him with stars in her eyes. 

 

 

Archie is contemplating waking his mother, who is asleep in the hospital room’s uncomfortable armchair, when the text from Betty lights up his phone. 

_Hey Arch. You doing ok?_

He taps his thumb against the side of his phone for a moment before typing out a reply: _Yeah. Gonna go home soon I think._

_That’s good, try and get some sleep_ , Betty says. 

He hesitates for one second, two, three, four, and then just types it, _Can u come over?_

_Mom watching me like a hawk. Sorry :(_

_Its ok_ , he replies, though his heart sinks into his stomach. 

There’s silence, and then his phone illuminates again: _Flashlight through my window._ It makes him smile, really smile, for the very first time since the gun went off at Pop’s, and half a second later she adds, _Remember our code?_

He remembers bits of their childhood secret language, flashes of lights in the dark, hardly enough to communicate, but it’s the thought of it all, it’s Betty in her pretty pink dress, Betty beaming at him on the other side of a diner booth, Betty there in every moment of his memories. 

He types, _Could never 4get._

 

tbc.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your feedback! I'm still a bit confused as to how I ended up being so into this show, but I'm very glad you're all in it with me. 
> 
> After this is complete, I will likely write a companion Betty/Jughead piece that follows what's going on with them more closely, but the remainder of this fic will be from Archie's perspective.

Archie and his parents spend Christmas in the hospital. His father is due to be released in three days and his mother says they have a lot to be thankful for. Archies know, logically, that this is true, but everything still feels unsettled somehow. 

His father is doing better, his father is going to be fine - but Sheriff Keller still doesn’t know who’s responsible for shooting him. Archie has returned to school, but it feels so weird, eating lunch with Betty and Kevin, aware that Veronica is likely somewhere with the Pussycats, glancing at the empty space that Jughead no longer occupies. Betty walks with him to school, and, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from school straight to the hospital, laughing at his jokes, snowflakes caught in her hair and her lashes, and it all feels easy and simple until he catches her gaze wandering and knows she’s thinking of something he’s not privy to. Jughead comes over in the evenings and they play video games, but there is a strange weight in the air between them that never seems to lift. 

Things are better, at least for his dad, but the world seems so off-kilter, just like this Christmas Day does, both his parents smiling widely in the midst of white hospital walls, beeping machines, and the smell of chemical cleaners. 

But then Betty arrives in the early afternoon, tupperware container of cookies in hand, Jughead and Polly in tow. Her cheeks are rosy from the cold. “My mother gave us one hour on furlough,” she says wryly, handing Archie the cookies and then hugging each of his parents as she wishes them Merry Christmas. 

Archie hugs Polly around her baby bump and then sputters a laugh at the sight of Jughead, whose beanie has been replaced by a Santa hat. Jug jerks a thumb toward Betty and explains, “She said this could be her gift.” 

“I did!” Betty agrees, all brightness and warmth. “But he still got me a very pretty copy of _The Turn of the Screw_.” 

Archie can’t help what his face does when she says that, and Polly laughs softly. _I know_ , she mouths at him. 

They all sit down and eat Betty’s cookies and make small talk, and it does feel like Christmas for a moment, sugar in his mouth, laughter in the air, chatter about snowfall and weather and climate change, stories from childhood of the four of them, the Cooper girls, Archie, and Jughead, building snowmen with carrot noses and button smiles. 

“That was fun,” Betty says, licking frosting off her lips. There is warmth in her eyes, warmth in her smile, and Archie melts like a damn icicle. 

 

 

Veronica spends the holiday in New York. She sends Archie a Christmas card. Around the Hallmark message inside, she’s filled both sides of the card’s interior with her pretty, looping writing. She apologizes (again), tells him what he means to her, tells him how she misses him, confides how fearful she is of just what her father is capable of, promises that she’s answered every one of the Sheriff’s questions truthfully, says she hopes one day he’ll forgive her for the family she comes from, signs off with _xxxooo Ronnie_. 

If Archie had it in him to reply, he would tell her that he misses her too, misses the sweet scent of her perfume and the arch of her eyebrows, her sarcastic commentary and her endless references, her pretty mouth and her fancy lingerie. But he can’t reply, he just can’t. He texts her instead: _got ur card. thx. merry xmas_ , and for now, it will have to be enough. 

 

 

“You must be so thrilled, Arch,” Betty says. “About your dad coming home tomorrow.” 

She’s laying on the bed, head at the foot, her sock feet by his pillow, her face between his head and Jughead’s, watching them play a video game as they lean back against the end of his bed. It feels like they’ve drifted back in time, the three of them lounging in his bedroom after school. 

“Yeah,” he says, “Of course.” 

Betty places a hand on his shoulder. “Things will be better,” she says softly, reassuringly. 

He pauses the game, provoking Jughead to say, “Hey, I was _just_ about to get you.” 

“You wish,” Archie tells him instinctively, and then says more seriously, “We still don’t know who did it. It’s… it’s like Jason all over again. Someone tried to _kill_ my dad and no one can figure out who it was.” 

“We _will_ figure it out,” Betty says. “Just like with Jason.” She glances at Jughead for confirmation and he nods. 

“I don’t know, Betts,” Archie sighs. “Even if we do… doesn’t it feel like everything’s different? Like even if we do figure it out, it’s not the same anymore - like something else horrible is going to happen, no matter what.” 

Jughead pokes an elbow into Archie’s ribs. “That’s painfully pessimistic.” 

“ _Real_ istic,” he insists. “Whatever’s going on with the Serpents… with the drugs… maybe even with the Lodges - it’s fucked up.” 

There is a long moment of silence. Jughead’s got his gaze focused on the TV; Betty’s lips press together so tight that the seam between them turns white. 

“What?” Archie asks. 

Betty smiles then. “Whatever it is that’s going on, we’ll figure it out,” she says again. She musses up his hair with one hand and reaches down, pressing the button on his controller to un-pause the game. 

Jughead immediately starts attacking him again and Archie only has time to say, “I guess,” before he’s sucked right back into the game. 

 

 

After his father comes home, it begins to feel almost as though the past few months never happened. Both his parents are in the house again, making coffee in the mornings, asking him about school over dinner in the evenings. Archie spends his afternoons at football practice and then battles his way through most of his pre-cal homework before finally texting Betty for help. At night, through Betty’s half-closed curtains, he catches glimpses of the Cooper sisters sitting on Betty’s bed, weaving braids into each other’s hair. 

If Archie is selective about what he chooses to see, then nothing has changed at all. 

But reality, of course, forces its way in. His parents begin to talk about when his mother will return to Chicago. Jughead starts saying things like, “I can’t stay for dinner, they want me to eat with them,” in reference to his foster family. Betty’s bedroom is empty on Friday nights, lights off, and she walks down the sidewalk past Archie’s house with Jughead, hair shining in the streetlights. If Archie looks to the sidelines during football practices, he sees the River Vixens attempting pyramids, Veronica’s dark hair standing out, Cheryl yelling out orders like she’s never been vulnerable, like she never plunged, crying, into the icy river. 

Riverdale has been changed forever, and maybe he has too. When he reaches for the past, there is nothing to hold onto. 

 

 

Through his bedroom window, he sees Betty sitting on her bed, her wet hair tied up in a bun. Her physics textbook is open in front of her - Archie would recognize it anywhere, a hulking mass with indecipherable formulae inside. She has a spiral-bound notebook balanced on one knee and is chewing on the end of a pencil. 

He stands by his window and texts her: _Astro?_

Betty looks at her phone, keys in her passcode, and then looks up at him, her brow furrowed. He nods to her textbook and she smiles before typing back, _Quantum._ She narrows her eyes at him on the other side of two panes of glass and then adds, _You know what unit we’re on right?_

Archie grins at her and shrugs. He waves his hand, gesturing for her to come over. In response, Betty lifts the huge textbook, one eyebrow lifting pointedly. 

He turns around, extracts his own version of the textbook from beneath a small pile of discarded running clothes, and returns to the window to show it to her. Betty rolls her eyes and he gives her his best puppy dog eyes. 

She holds up a hand, her fingers splayed. She’ll be over in five minutes. 

 

 

Betty comes over in the exact same outfit she was wearing in her bedroom, a pair of blue pyjama pants printed with fluffy white bunnies and a plain grey pullover sweater, her winter coat thrown on overtop. 

They sit at the dining room table as they have so many times in the past, books open in front of them, Betty’s colour-coding highlighters in a neat row on the tabletop. She leans over to point to certain parts of the tougher questions for him, talking problems through, working the answers out aloud. 

She smells great, freshly scrubbed and bundled into her pyjamas, like the springtime-scented detergent her mother uses and the oatmeal cookie body scrub she likes - Archie knows exactly what it is because he’d asked her once, baffled, how it was that she always smelled like she’s just baked cookies. 

She flicks the eraser end of her pencil against his nose like he’s a misbehaving dog. “Pay attention, Archie.” 

“I am,” he insists. “I am. You were doing that… equation.” 

Betty gets that _oh, Archie_ look on her face. “You should write it down. It’ll help you remember.” 

He pulls her notebook closer to him and begins copying out the formula. “No Jug tonight,” he observes casually, not looking at her. 

“No,” Betty says, linking her fingers together. “He’s, um… he’s visiting FP.” 

Archie keeps on writing. “Oh.” 

She presses her lips together for a moment before she says, “The lawyer’s trying to get him a new deal.”

Formula still incomplete, Archie puts down his pencil. “Do you want to watch a movie?”

Betty looks surprised, eyes darting between Archie’s notebook and his face before they settle on the textbook, the page of problems they still haven’t finished. “Well… ”

“Come on, Betts,” he cajoles softly. 

She looks at him with something like apprehension before she smiles, just a little. “Okay.”

 

 

They watch _Transformers_ , because he loves it and Betty always laughs at about half the jokes, give or take. His living room is dark except for the blue glow emanating from the TV. They sit on opposite sides of the couch, Archie leaning against one armrest, Betty pressed to the other, knees pulled to her chest. The action unfolds on the screen and Archie tries to remember if the last time they did this they were so far apart. He doesn’t think so - he thinks he remembers Betty resting her feet on his thigh, eyes hazy with sleep as she looked at him while the end credits rolled. 

He can’t even remember the last time they hung out like this, without talking about a mystery they’re desperate to solve, without Jughead and Veronica, without the awkward tension that had sparked between them after she’d wrapped her arms around his neck and looked at him shyly and spoken of love. 

He’s missed it, he’s missed this, he’s missed _her_ , and he intends to say as much, but when he shifts closer, across the sofa cushions, and reaches for one of the hands she’s got clamped around her knees, the wetness in her palm stops the words on his tongue. 

“What… ?” he murmurs, and Betty yanks her hand out of his, curling into the corner of the couch like a wounded animal. “Betty, what - ” He flicks on a lamp and reaches for her wrist, and she’s saying _stop, stop it Archie, stop it, it’s nothing, it’s nothing_ and he uncurls her stiff fingers and finds blood in the center of her hand, slipping out of indentations so deep they’ve broken her skin. 

“What happened?” he breathes. “Betty, what the hell happened?” His feels his voice rise as his pulse does, the answer coming to him, the knowledge that the blood in her skin is from her own fingernails. 

“It’s nothing,” she hisses, trying to fight off his grasp. He holds her wrist tightly and stares into her eyes and she falls apart in stages, a trembling lip followed by tears in her eyes and then a breathy, broken noise that tugs at something inside of him. “You have so much going on,” she says through her tears. “You have so much going on, Arch, your dad - ” 

He’s always had so much going on. He’s always been so distracted, and Betty has always been right here, and he’s failed, over and over again, to notice. 

“Betts,” he murmurs, his throat aching, and when he pulls her to him she doesn’t resist, curling up against his chest as she cries, her face wet against his shoulder. He wraps his arms around her securely. He tries to find the right words to say but he just can’t. 

She cries for what seems like a very long time, though Archie knows by the movement of the movie’s plot that it isn’t. When her gulping sobs turn into soft, tearful gasps, he puts his chin on her head and says, “Betty, it’s okay. It’s okay.” 

“I’m going to lose him, Arch,” she whispers against his neck, breath hot. “I’m going to lose him.” 

When she says that, something happens inside of him, a terrible feeling, like nausea mixed with grief. After a pause he manages to say, “No.” He swallows. “No, it’s just Southside High.” 

Betty pulls away from him and wipes her face with her hands, forgetting her cuts, so that faint streaks of blood mingle with her tears. “It’s so much more than that,” she says. 

Eyes dark and without that comfortably familiar _oh, Archie_ gleam, blood wet on her face, hands balled into fists that look painfully tight - he can hardly recognize Betty Cooper at all. 

 

 

Betty doesn’t say any more. She cleans up her face and hands at his kitchen sink and then squares her shoulders, like her determination alone will erase her breakdown from his memory. 

“I’m sorry, Archie,” she says in her familiar soft voice. “You’ve been through so much lately; you don’t need my problems piled on top of yours.” 

“I want you to talk to me. You’ve helped me. Let me help you.” 

She shakes her head. “I’m okay. Honestly. I’m sorry.” 

“Betty.” He steps in close to her. “Stop apologizing.” 

“Sorry,” she says automatically, and they both smile. He reaches for her hand, wanting to check that her cuts are okay, but she pulls it away. “Don’t worry, Arch. Not about this. Worry about finishing your physics homework.” 

He puts a hand on her shoulder. “We won’t let anything bad happen to Jug. You know that, right?” 

Betty exhales slowly, her gaze falling to the floor. 

Archie tucks his fingers under her chin to tilt it back up. “Right?” 

“Right,” she says in a whisper so soft he barely hears it. 

Her eyes are so sad and so very beautiful. He’s also known Betty was pretty but he’s never known it like he knows it right now, with his hand on her face, fingertips gliding across her jawbone and onto her cheek. He dips his head, his face so close to hers that they’re breathing the same air. 

And then Betty takes a giant step backward. “Goodnight, Archie,” she says, and half a second later she’s out the door, leaving a blast of cold air in her wake. 

 

 

The next day, Betty marches up to their usual lunch table, where Archie is currently sitting alone. The set of her jaw gives away her determination, and he wonders momentarily if they’re going to have a Serious Conversation about the night before, but that thought is dashed away when Betty sits down, folds her hands neatly in front of her and says, “You need to talk to V.” 

Archie sighs, looking away. “Betty, I told you, I - ”

“I know it’s hard,” she interrupts. “I know you must be feeling so horrible about what happened to your dad, and the possibility that Veronica’s family is tangled up in it, but Veronica’s family isn’t _Veronica_. She didn’t do anything to hurt you.” 

“I know that. And she… she knows I know that. Right?” 

“Logically, probably, but she’s still pretty upset about it. And can you blame her? All of this is hard on her too, and she feels so guilty.” Betty takes an orange out of her bag. “I’m not saying you have to get back together with her - ”

“We weren’t exactly… together,” he says. 

“Just _talk_ to her, Archie. I think you’ll both feel better.” 

He watches her fingernails dip into the orange’s skin and thinks of the cuts on her hands. “Will it make you happy?” 

She glances up, surprised. “If you talk to Veronica? Um - yeah. I guess so. I think it’ll be good for both of you, I really do.” 

Archie nods slowly. “Then I’ll do it. For you.” 

Betty offers him a small smile that fades too quickly. “Good.” 

 

 

They run a series of conditioning exercises at football practice that afternoon. As he breathes heavily through his suicide runs, Archie can see the River Vixens running their routines in his peripheral vision, tossing hair, shaking hips. They’re wearing their uniforms today, rather than their practice outfits. Betty and Veronica are smiling at each other, arms linked together, as Cheryl yells that chewing gum during practice is unacceptable. 

After practice he takes a particularly long shower, waiting for some of the tension to seep out of his muscles under the flow of warm water. Once he turns off the water, he pulls on jeans and a t-shirt and rubs at his hair with his towel until it’s only somewhat damp. 

Remembering his promise to Betty, he heads back into the gym - the girls were still practicing when he left. They’re done now though, only two remaining, stretching on the floor and chatting with each other. It can’t have been that long since Cheryl released them, so he heads out the gym doors to see if he can catch Veronica. 

He doesn’t see her anywhere, but his eyes are drawn, like a moth to a flame, to the familiar sight of Betty’s pert ponytail. She’s perched on the hood of FP’s truck, legs drawn up in an attempt to keep warm, a jacket wrapped around her shoulders. Jughead sits next to her, one of his hands braced just behind her hip, and Archie understands what this is; a stolen, quiet moment before Betty has to rush home for family dinner and Jug has to return to his foster family. 

He’s about to leave when they both stand up, Betty’s skirt flouncing around her legs as she hops off the hood of the car. She turns to give Jughead a kiss and it hits Archie like a slap in the face, the jacket around her shoulders, layered overtop her River Vixens uniform, the bright image of a snake on its back. 

Stunned, he watches Betty return the jacket to Jughead, watches Jughead shrug it on, watches Betty wave as Jug drives off and then wrap her arms around herself, shivering. 

He’s not thinking, not really, when he begins walking toward her. It’s only when she turns and her eyes flicker when she sees him, betraying anxiety, that his mind catches up to his body and he feels enraged, feels betrayed, feels _scared_ like he did cradling his father’s body on the floor at Pop’s. 

“Jughead’s a _Serpent_ now?” he says, coming to a stop just inches from Betty, who shrinks away from the volume of his voice. 

“Archie,” she says softly. “Don’t - ”

“Don’t what? Don’t _what_ , Betty?” He looks at her incredulously, the image of that jacket around her shoulders burned into his brain. “They tried to _kill my dad_.”

“No,” she says immediately, putting her hands on his chest. “No, Archie, they didn’t, I promise. They didn’t.” 

“And how do you know that?” he demands. 

“Jughead _checked_ ,” she says. “Of course he checked!” 

“Because _gangs_ are just _known_ for their honesty,” Archie snaps. 

“Listen to me,” Betty pleads. “Arch, listen to me.” Her hands lift, her fingertips grazing his cheeks for half a heartbeat before she drops them again. “He checked, I promise you he did. It wasn’t the Serprents, what happened to your dad. It wasn’t. He made sure.” She looks at him imploringly. “We have to believe him this time. We have to. We didn’t last time, and look where it got us.” 

“You can’t _trust_ them, Betty!” he all but yells. 

“We can trust _Jug_. We can - ”

“They _shot my father_!” 

She shakes her head and says to him, her voice so quiet, so gentle, so sure: “They didn’t.” 

He has never, ever known a time when Betty wasn’t on his side, and the shock of it sends him reeling just like Jughead’s jacket. His head spins and he can’t stand this, can’t stand her being like this. 

Archie is hurt and he hurts her right back, grits out, “Guess they were right then.” His jaw clenches. “You’re a Serpent slut.” 

The look on Betty’s face is something he’s never seen before, shock layered over pain and mixed with disbelief. Her skin goes pale and her eyes are wet. She turns from him and runs, ponytail bouncing in the fading daylight. 

 

 

Archie sits on the bleachers in the cold and contemplates going home, but the knowledge that he’ll go into his bedroom and likely see Betty’s curtains drawn tight keeps him where he is. He’s angry with himself and angry with her and angry with Jughead and angry, beyond words, that someone shot his father, someone almost killed his father, and no one can find out who it is. 

Cheryl arrives just when his fingers are starting to freeze. She looks a little different than she used to, since she burned down her family home. He’s heard her mother’s “resting” in an institution and that she’s staying with her grandmother in a new, smaller house. Her fancy clothes went up in smoke, and now she wears a pair of simple olive green pants and a white blouse under her coat, her hair in an intricate braid over one shoulder. 

“Archie,” she says. Her lips are a distinct burst of red in the white world around them. “I wanted to thank you.” She folds her arms across her chest. “For saving my life.” 

“You don’t have to thank me, Cheryl,” he says tiredly. 

“Of course I do.” 

He looks into her eyes, searching for all the sadness that he’d seen there after the river. “Okay. Well. You’re welcome.” 

Cheryl smiles, just a little. It’s different than her usual smirk. “I haven’t thanked you yet,” she says, and then she’s on his lap, knees braced on the bleachers on either side of him, and they’re kissing. 

She doesn’t taste syrupy this time, doesn’t taste like much of anything but cherry lip gloss and cold. Archie puts his hands on her waist, and he kisses her back. 

“Come to my car,” Cheryl says, and she’s off his lap just as quickly as she was on it, sashaying away, confident that he’s following her. 

 

 

Archie fucks Cheryl Blossom in her car, cold hands growing warmer, windows steaming. She is a rough with him and he likes it, needs it, and is pleased at the way she seems to purr when he manhandles her in return. 

Afterward, struggling awkwardly back into his clothes in the confines of the car, he feels confused and a little guilty. “Cheryl,” he says. “You didn’t have to - ”

She lays across the backseat, leisurely and satiated. “I wanted to, Archie,” she says, and he could almost believe her. 

 

 

When he finally arrives home, Jughead is sitting on his front steps. He’s not wearing the leather jacket anymore; he’s wearing a familiar jacket of his, red and black plaid, pulled tight around his torso to keep out the cold. 

“Hey,” he says when he sees Archie, his mouth pulling into something like a grimace. 

Archie exhales, a long and slow sigh. “Hey.” 

Jughead brushes his palms against his jeans, like he’s wiping them clean, and then stands. “Betty’s a wreck,” he says. “She didn’t even want to tell me what happened.” 

Archie rubs his hand over his eyes. “I was a dick,” he admits, “but - ”

“But?” 

“But what the fuck are you doing, Juggie? Being a Serpent? They’re a gang. Is that who you are now, a guy in a gang? You’re going to sell drugs and steal shit and… shoot at people?” 

Jughead tucks his hands into his coat pockets. “The Serpents didn’t hurt your dad,” he says very seriously. “I swear, Archie. You and your dad - you’ve always looked out for me. You took me in. If the Serpents were involved with what happened at Pop’s in any way, I wouldn’t have kept the jacket.” 

“It’s not even about that,” Archie says. “I mean, it is, but it’s also what… it’s what they represent.” 

“Look,” Jughead sighs. “I don’t expect you to understand. I really don’t. And that’s… fine. I don’t expect Betty to understand either. But she’s trying.” When Archie shakes his head, he adds, “I know you don’t get it. I know that. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” He clears his throat, his voice hardening a bit as he says, “But don’t call my girlfriend a slut.” He meets Archie’s gaze. “Don’t call _Betty_ a slut.” 

Archie winces a little, his eyes dropping to the pavement. “That’s not her, Jug. All that shit - that’s not where she belongs.” 

Jughead is quiet for so long that Archie looks up at him again and finds that Jug is looking into the distance, nodding very slowly. “So that’s what this is,” he says when Archie looks at him. “Betty’s not sitting next door in her tower anymore, waiting for Prince Charming to ask her to let down her hair.” 

“No,” Archie says immediately, “No, it’s not - ”

“She doesn’t belong to me,” Jughead says. “She makes her own choices.” 

“I know that,” Archie says lowly. 

“Then let her,” Jughead says. He punches Archie’s arm, a bit too hard for it to be a gesture that’s entirely playful. “And don’t be an ass.” 

He watches Jughead walk off and then heaves a sigh, letting his gaze drift up toward Betty’s window. 

Her lights are off. 

 

tbc.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I have to thank you for your comments and kudos! I appreciate them so much. 
> 
> In this chapter, we are pretending Riverdale High is one of those schools in which all grade levels can attend prom. 
> 
> This chapter also features a classically cringe-worthy teen drama singing scene, during which it might be useful to listen to "Back to December" by Taylor Swift.

Betty doesn’t come to school for two days after Archie insults her. When she returns the following Monday she won’t even look at him - he approaches their usual table at lunch, but Kevin looks at him and shakes his head firmly, so Archie retreats. 

The rest of the week is the same. He meets up with Josie and Valerie and Melody to work on music one day at lunch, but otherwise the school feels lonely to him. Jughead isn’t there, Betty won’t talk to him, and he and Veronica are still actively avoiding each other. 

Archie’s only friend - if he can even call her that - is Cheryl, who sees him outside the boys’ locker room when his hair is still damp from his shower and smiles, and then they’re in the empty locker room together, his back pressed against a bank of lockers, Cheryl’s mouth on him, his hands in her hair. 

She reapplies her lipstick afterward, leaning close to a mirror over a sink, and then caps the lipstick again with a neat little _click_. She walks back toward him and her eyes aren’t soft, exactly, but they’re not hard either. 

Cheryl pats his cheek. “There, there, Archie,” she says. “The sun will come up tomorrow.”

He searches her face, wondering if the sun has come up for her. He can’t find an answer, so he just kisses her. 

She frowns, checks her lipstick in the mirror to make sure it still looks good, and flounces off, leaving Archie alone once again. 

 

 

He’s alone in the student lounge after school when there’s a gentle knock on the doorjamb. He looks up and sees Veronica, looking immaculate as always. 

“Hi, Archie,” she says, and there’s a beat of silence, both of them acknowledging that she doesn’t add her usual _-kins_. 

“Hey, Ronnie,” he says. “Come on in.”

She smiles and walks over, sits on the other end of the old, worn-in sofa. “So,” she says. “I hear you royally fucked up.” 

He smiles in spite of himself. Veronica has always been easy to talk to, and he’s missed her advice, her quips, the understanding in her eyes when she listened to him. “Betty told you, huh?” 

Veronica nods, her mouth making a sympathetic shape. 

“She hasn’t spoken to me in three weeks. I don’t even think she’s _looked_ at me.” 

“Give her a little more time,” Veronica says softly. “She needs to be ready to forgive you.” 

“Yeah.” He runs a hand through his messy hair. “What about you? Are you ready to forgive me?” he asks, offering her a wry smile. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Archie,” she says, smiling back. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

He lifts one shoulder in a shrug, not entirely sure that’s true. “I shut you out.”

“I understand why.” She looks down into her lap. “I still don’t know… if my family was involved. But I really, really hope my parents had nothing to do with it.”

“I know.” Archie reaches over and gives one of her hands a quick squeeze before releasing it. “And even - worst case scenario - if they do, it’s not your fault.” 

“Thank you,” Veronica murmurs, “for saying that.” 

“It’s just the truth, Ronnie.” 

She gives him the smile he’s so fond of, the one he always wanted to kiss. “Thanks, Archiekins.” 

They exist in companionable silence for a few moments, Veronica crossing her legs and getting a bit more comfortable on the couch, the two of them exchanging another set of smiles - this time they’re smiles infused with relief, with the acknowledgement that their friendship is getting pieced back together. 

And then Veronica asks, innocent as can be, “Are you in love with her?” 

Archie’s eyes snap to her face. “What?”

“Are you in love with her?” she repeats. There is genuine curiosity on her face. 

“Who?”

Veronica rolls her eyes dramatically. “Oh, _please_ , the dumb jock act is so last semester.” 

He feels his cheeks heat up slightly. “You’re talking about Betty.”

“Yes, Dawson Leery,” she says with fondness. “I’m talking about Betty.” 

“No,” Archie says. “No, I’m not in love with her.” 

She’s quiet for a moment. “You’ve already lied to me about this, Archie. I asked you before, remember? After I saw you looking at her, at Southside High.”

“And I told you, that was - ”

She puts a hand on his leg. “Don’t lie again. Please.” 

He blows out his breath. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever been in love and I - I don’t know.” 

“But you’re jealous,” she says, “of our resident Romeo and Juliet.” 

Archie shakes his head. “No - Jug said something like that, too, but it’s not jealousy, I’m just… I’m worried about her. I don’t think Betty should be dating a Serpent.” 

“You think she should be dating a football player who writes songs about her,” Veronica says, and she’s teasing, in a way, but she’s also not. 

“I don’t want her to get hurt.” 

She tilts her head to look into his face. “Neither does Jughead,” she points out softly. “Nobody does; she’s Betty Cooper.” 

He knows that’s true, but the uncomfortable feeling at the bottom of his throat remains. “I just want her back,” he says. “Will you tell her that I’ll beg for her forgiveness when she’s ready?” 

Veronica nods. “Of course.” 

“I didn’t… mean to lie to you, you know.” 

Again, she nods. “I know.” 

 

 

It’s been nearly a month since he hurled an insult at her behind the gym when he notices that Betty’s curtains are open again - not all the way, not even halfway, but it’s something. He peers through his window into hers, sees a flash of black, the movement of shadows on her wall. 

He grabs his phone, opens their texting history and wracks his brain for the right thing to say. He’s still thinking when he sees movement, and his head snaps up just in time to see Betty falling back on her bed, hair wavy and free from its ponytail - _naked_. 

Her skin is a plane uninterrupted by clothing and from his vantage point he can see her breasts, nipples peaked, and a strip of the skin over her ribcage before the rest of her disappears behind the window frame. Betty’s chest heaves in shallow breaths, her lashes flutter over her eyes, and a moment later she throws her head back, her neck a long line, her mouth open in a cry that Archie can’t hear. 

Whirling around, he grabs onto the back of his desk chair and thinks _holy shit_. For a minute that’s the only thought in his mind, and then he’s flooded with conflicting feelings. He’s shocked at the sight of Betty Cooper like that, sexy and undone; he feels the dirty guilt of a voyeur; he is very turned on. 

“Holy shit,” he says aloud, and then leaves his room, not trusting himself to keep from looking back at Betty’s window, and takes a cold shower. 

 

 

At school, Betty looks different to him, and maybe she is a little different in real, tangible ways. She’s been wearing her hair down a lot more often and there are hints of a bit more dark makeup around her eyes. She’s wearing fewer floral patterns and more shirts that have the shoulders cut out of them. 

But to Archie she seems different primarily because of what he knows. He knows that Betty Cooper, Riverdale’s very own good girl, is having sex. He knows that she must be having that sex with Jughead Jones. He knows she’s had that sex in her sweet, girly, pink-and-white bedroom. He knows she’s been enjoying that sex, judging by what he’s seen. He knows that his accidental witnessing of that sex is another change in his relationship with Betty - something else she may have been saving for him, something else he walked away from. 

 

 

It isn’t fair and he knows it, but it’s been five weeks, going on six, and Archie is at the end of his rope, so he accosts Betty at her locker when the school day has ended and the hallway is emptying out. 

“Please,” he says to her. “Please talk to me. Please let me apologize.” 

When she looks at him, she still has hurt in her eyes, and she hugs her books to her chest. “Not now.” 

“Betty, _please_ ,” he says desperately, and there is a shift in her pretty eyes, the tiniest glimmer of that _oh, Archie_ look, a softening. 

She closes her locker. “Later,” she says, and he knows to shut up and be content with that. 

 

 

Betty opens her curtains in the evening and stands there with her arms crossed over her chest. 

Archie picks up the sign he’s made on a poster board; it says _SORRY_ in huge letters and is surrounded by stickers that he hopes will make her smile, sad faces and kittens and unicorns. 

Her lips twitch at the sight of his sign, and she examines it for a moment before she nods. 

Archie drops the sign and races down the stairs, out of his front door and through hers, pounding up the staircase to her bedroom. 

 

 

It is awkward between them. Betty closes her door. Archie sits on the stool in front of her vanity, she sits at the end of her bed. He picks up the closest thing to him, a baby name book, and holds it up with an inquisitive expression. 

“For Pol,” she says, with some warmth in her voice, nose scrunching like she doesn’t understand why he’d think it would be there for any other reason. 

He sets the book down and coughs to clear his throat. “Look, Betty - I’m so sorry. I said a terrible thing to you. I never should have. It was totally unacceptable and I know that. And I didn’t mean it, of course I didn’t mean it, I was just… upset. Surprised. Worried.” 

She nods. “I know.” 

“It was like… it was like I was looking at you and remembering what happened to my dad, and then I was seeing it happen to you.” 

Her eyes go soft. “Oh, Arch.” 

“Anyway, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He holds her gaze. “Please forgive me.” 

“I forgive you,” she says quietly. “That wasn’t how… we wanted you to find out. About Juggie.” 

“Is he still mad at me?”

Betty shrugs. “I think he’s following my lead.” 

Archie nods, and after a beat, he asks, “Can we hug it out?” 

She gives him a little smile, nodding as they both stand up. Betty steps into his embrace and it’s like he can breathe again with her pressed against him, her hands against his back. 

When they pull apart he doesn’t let go all the way, leaving his hands on her hips. “I love you,” he tells her. 

Betty’s smile comes easier this time, sweeter. “I love you, too.”

 

 

It is in his bedroom, after they’ve slept together for the first time in a bed rather than in a place that’s cramped or illicit, that Cheryl steps back into her dress, turns so that Archie can do up her zipper, and says, “I’d like us to go to prom together.” 

He pauses with the zipper halfway up her back. Cheryl’s skin is perfect alabaster and he can see the ridges of her spine - it reminds him that she is, in fact, breakable. “Cheryl,” he says hesitantly. “I don’t want you to think - ”

“I don’t _think_ anything, Archiekins,” she says, turning toward him - she seems to enjoy the way he always cringes a little when she uses Veronica’s nickname for him. “Except that we have a chance of winning king and queen.” 

He’s obviously not going to go to prom with Veronica, or Betty, or even Valerie, so he supposes it’s probably stupid to turn down the beautiful girl in front of him who actually wants his company. 

“We’ll go… as friends?” he says, half a question. 

Cheryl smiles, looking at the marks her long fingernails have left on his bare chest. “Of course, Archie,” she says. “As friends.” 

 

 

Things have begun to settle back into a rhythm of normalcy at school, and for that he is immeasurably grateful. It feels good to know where he belongs again, to return to the same table each day at lunchtime. Veronica sits next to him, a solid foot of space between them, and Betty always sits with Kevin on the other side of the table, but even with those changes Archie is glad to be there, at that table, with his friends. 

Betty tells them that Polly is in the hospital on some kind of bedrest, that she’s going to be an aunt any day now. Archie notes the black eyeliner making little wings at the corner of her eyes, notes that the eyes framed by those wings are tired, but her smile is one of genuine excitement, and he smiles back at her. 

“Having a baby or two is probably a legitimate excuse to miss prom,” Kevin jokes.

“Uh, speaking of prom,” Archie says, because he’s sort of been avoiding telling them and time is running out, “Cheryl asked me to go with her.” 

Kevin’s eyes go wide. “Oh my god,” he says. “It’s like we’ve time-warped back six months.”

Veronica laughs, and Archie says, “No, it’s not like that. It’s not… some big Blossom scheme.”

“Everything with Cheryl is a scheme,” Kevin says. 

“It’ll be totally fine,” Archie insists. “We’re going as friends. And we’ll all hang out, right? Together?”

“You want all of us to spend prom night with Cheryl?” Veronica asks, sounding reluctant. 

Betty sets down her half-eaten sandwich. “I’m not going, actually,” she says. “To prom.” 

“What?” all three of them ask in unison. 

That makes Betty smile. “Jug doesn’t really want to go, and I get that, it’s kind of… weird for him.” She shrugs. “We’ll go to Southside’s prom next year.”

“Oh, no,” Veronica says. “No, no. Betty. You do not need a boy to enjoy your own prom.” 

“I know that, V, but - ”

“No,” Veronica cuts in. “No buts.” She reaches across the table to take Betty’s hand. “Go with me. Be my date.” 

“V, come on,” Betty says fondly. “Half the football team is dying to go with you.”

“Maybe,” Veronica says breezily. She smiles. “But I choose Betty Cooper.” 

Betty smiles back at her. “If you insist.” 

“I do.” 

“This is a zero sum situation,” Kevin sighs. “Betty is coming, but so is Cheryl.” 

“Am I not worth more?” Betty teases, and in the midst of Kevin’s answer she looks at something over Archie’s shoulder and her entire face lights up. “Juggie, what - ” She’s out of her seat then and Archie turns around to see Jughead standing behind him. Betty wraps her arms around him and Jughead lifts her off the ground briefly, making her laugh. 

“Hey,” Jughead says to the group as a whole, and then looks into Betty’s face. “Come get lunch with me?” 

“Of course,” Betty says, and waves at them all. “See you in History.” 

“Dibs on her cookies,” Kevin says, reaching for Betty’s discarded lunch. 

Archie watches them walk away, hands clasped between them. He feels Veronica’s foot nudge his under the table and looks at her. She looks sad for him and mouths, _You okay?_

He doesn’t nod or say yes, because she’d asked him not to lie to her again, and he thinks he owes her that much. 

 

 

That night, while he’s sitting as his desk, staring at his homework but not actually attempting to do it, Betty appears at her bedroom window. It’s late, but she’s not in her pyjamas yet. She reaches up to close her curtains and then sees that he’s there and waves. 

He waves back. She yawns, patting her hand over her mouth, signalling to him that she’s tired. He nods and mouths, _goodnight_ , enunciating syllables so she can read his lips. Betty closes her curtains and it’s in that moment, as she disappears from sight, that he knows he has to do something.

 

 

Josie agrees to let him play _one_ song on his own, though it does take some begging on his part. After he thanks her profusely he hears her talking under her breath about how they’ll have to be sure to sandwich it between two upbeat songs so that Archie Andrews doesn’t take all the fun out of prom with whatever ballad he decides to play. 

In his bedroom, he strums his guitar, trying to perfect the sequence of chords as he sings softly. Through his window, he can see Betty and Veronica painting each other’s toenails. 

 

 

Veronica and Betty show up at prom with their arms linked around each other’s waists, beautiful in such different ways that it creates a distinct contrast: Veronica’s hair perfectly settled over her shoulders, Betty’s in a complicated updo; Veronica’s dress jewel-toned purple, Betty’s a charcoal grey; Veronica’s mouth smiling in berry lipstick, Betty’s lips pressed together in hesitance under a dusty pink shade. 

To know that either of them could have been on his arm makes Archie feel like a total idiot. 

In her red dress at his side Cheryl looks like a femme fatale, icy and dangerous. “We’ll never win king and queen with those two looking like a teenage boy’s daydream,” she huffs, and he steers her toward the punch table. 

 

 

While Cheryl’s off talking to her friends, Archie asks Veronica to dance. 

“That’s sweet, Archiekins,” she says, “but I promised this one to Reggie. This girl’s free, though!” she adds, and all but shoves Betty into his arms. 

Archie looks at Betty and she looks back at him and shrugs. It’s a callback to so many months ago, Veronica pushing them together, Betty shy and reluctant. Archie puts his hands on Betty’s waist and she places her palms on his shoulders. 

It’s like it used to be, and yet, it’s not. Betty looks so different in her grey dress, simple in the front but with a plunging back, and Archie feels so different holding her this time around. 

“Are you having a good time?” he asks. 

“Yes. Are you?” 

“Yeah,” Archie says. “But Cheryl never lets me lead.” 

Betty giggles. The sound of her laughter makes his chest bloom with warmth. 

“I’m glad you came, Betts,” he tells her earnestly, his fingers _just_ touching the bare skin of her lower back. 

She links her hands at the back of his neck. “Me too, Arch.” 

 

 

Josie introduces him and Archie gets up on stage with his guitar to a smattering of applause. He searches the crowd and finds Betty, standing alone, head tilted slightly as she watches him. 

“Hey, everyone,” he says into the microphone. “I’m about to play an embarrassing song.” There’s laughter at that and he smiles. “I, uh - I hope you’re all having a good prom.” He plucks at a string on his guitar. “This one’s for a certain someone who dragged me to a concert four yeas ago. We heard this song.”

Archie takes a breath, plays his first chord, and begins to sing. 

He doesn’t look up at first, only notices in his peripheral vision that some couples have begun to dance, swaying slowly. He doesn’t look up until he sings the chorus, of which he has changed one word. 

“This is me swallowing my pride, standing in front of you, sayin’ I’m sorry for that night. And I go back to September all the time. It turns out freedom ain’t nothin’ but missin’ you, wishin’ I’d realized what I had when you were mine. I go back to September, turn around and make it all right… I go back to September all the time.” 

In the bright lights, he can’t find Betty right away. He sees Veronica, standing with Reggie, her fingers pressed to her lips, and then finally he sees Betty again, still standing alone, her mouth open, her arms wrapped tight around herself, and Archie keeps singing, because he wants her to understand. 

“These days, I haven’t been sleeping, stayin’ up, playin’ back myself leaving…" He drops his gaze to his guitar as he switches chords and focuses, for a moment, on keeping his voice from shaking, but he makes sure to look back at Betty when he sings, “Maybe this is wishful thinking, probably mindless dreaming, but if you loved again I swear I’d love you right…” 

She presses both hands to her face, over her nose and mouth, and then turns and rushes from the gym, pair after pair of eyes following her. 

Archie stops playing. “Betty!” he calls into the microphone, and then runs off the stage to follow her. 

 

 

He catches up to her in the hallway; she’s limping a bit in her heels. 

“Betty! Betty, wait,” he says, grabbing onto her upper arm gently. 

She turns to look at him. There is a tear gliding down one of her cheeks, and he cannot read the expression in her eyes. 

Archie brushes her tear away with the pad of his thumb. “Betts, I didn’t mean to make you cry.” 

Betty shakes her head, lips twisting before she looks down at the ground, and he sees two more tears escape her eyes. “Arch… ”

“Don’t cry,” he says softly, moving closer to her. 

She makes a choked sound that might be a sob or a laugh. “You hated that concert,” she says, looking into his face again. “You hated it.” 

He smiles. “It was Taylor Swift. I was the only guy there.” He rubs her arm lightly to comfort her. “But I went. Because you asked me to.” 

“Archie,” she breathes. 

“Betty, I’ve been an idiot. I’ve been such an idiot. I think I thought… that even if I said no, even if I said we couldn’t be together back when you asked me, that we would, eventually. I thought everything would just work itself out when the timing was right.” He studies her face, always so pretty, and lately, always so sad. “It’s always been us, Betts,” he says softly. “You and me.”

A tear runs down the side of her nose. “Archie, don’t.” 

“‘I’ve always loved you,” he tells her. “I love you.” He cups her face in his hands. “Don’t let my stupid mistake ruin us.” 

Betty’s hands come up to cover his; her touch is soft and tender. It’s all he needs to move in closer, to touch his lips to hers. 

Their kiss tastes like the salt of her tears, like the tang of her lipstick. He presses into it, thumb stroking her cheek, and she pulls back with a gasp, a sharp sound in the quiet hall. 

Betty clutches her hands against her chest as if she’s worried her heart will break. “I love him,” she says, weeping. “Archie, I’m in love with him.” 

For a long time they just stand there, looking at each other. Her eyes are imploring and sorrowful. The only sound in the hallway is their breathing, his heavy and hard, hers shallow and wet, until the steady _click, clack_ of high heels on the tiled floor breaks the silence. 

“B?” Veronica’s voice asks softly. 

Betty tears her eyes from Archie to look at Veronica, and after a moment of silent communication, she sucks in a deep breath, bends to tug off her heels, and walks away in her bare feet. 

Archie stares at the empty spot in the hall where she once stood. He feels Veronica’s hand settle gently against his back. 

“You were brave for her, you know,” she says quietly. “You were brave.”

Maybe he was, even if now, in this moment, he feels like a fool, but it got him nothing. 

Wishful thinking. Mindless dreaming. 

It wasn’t enough. 

 

tbc.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!

Polly’s babies are born the night after prom. Archie knows this because Cheryl posts a photo in the wee hours of the morning of an impossibly tiny hand resting on one of her fingers. It is also from Cheryl’s Instagram that he learns that, after he and Betty fled from the gym, Betty and Veronica were announced queens of prom, and that Veronica pulled Cheryl up on stage with her to be crowned in Betty’s stead.

He doesn’t talk to any of them - not Cheryl, not Veronica, certainly not Betty. He spends the bulk of his weekend laying on his bed in his dark room. His father pokes his head in to ask, “You need to talk about anything, son?” and then later, after Archie still hasn’t resurfaced, delivers him a burger and a milkshake. 

He feels morose and like a complete idiot. The whole school watched Archie Andrews’ confession of love make a girl _cry and run_. The whole school heard him sing a damn Taylor Swift song. The whole school knows that the latest development in the saga of all-American girl-and-boy-next-door Archie and Betty is Betty’s rejection of his grand romantic gesture. 

Archie flops onto his stomach and face-plants directly into his pillow, stifling a groan. He stays that way until his phone dings, and when he grabs it he sees a text from Veronica: _one day u will write a chart-topping hit about this_. He sighs, rolling onto his back again as he considers a reply, and then another text from her comes through: _just like t swift!!!! :)_

That makes his frown, and he begins to type, but Veronica beats him to the punch again: _heartbreak = muse._ At that, he can’t help but smile. 

He closes his messaging app and calls her instead. She doesn’t say hello when she picks up, just half-yells, half-sings at him: “I stay out too late! … Got nothin’ in my brain! … that’s what people say, mm-mm, that’s what people say, mm-mm… ”

Archie cracks up in spite of himself, pressing a hand over his eyes, and joins her on the chorus, trying to harmonize through his laughter. “But I keep cruising; can’t stop, won’t moving… It’s like I’ve got this music, in my mind, saying it’s gonna be alright… ”

 

 

He spends all of Monday on the verge of wincing, sure that he’s going to see Betty at any moment and have to confront whatever horrible awkwardness there is between them now. He’s worried she will have stopped speaking to him again. 

But he doesn’t see her in English class, and when he arrives at the table at lunch, only Kevin and Veronica are there. “Where’s Betty?” he asks hesitantly. 

“Her parents let her stay with Polly,” Veronica says. “The babies are still in the hospital.”

“Right,” Archie says, and takes a deep breath. “You think she’s angry with me?” 

“No,” Veronica says immediately. 

“Of course not,” Kevin says. “Are you kidding me? That was incredibly intense. I almost cried.” 

Archie slides him a look. “Betty _did_ cry.” 

That sobers Kevin up slightly, and he says, “You did a nice thing. Sure, it was a little misguided - _ow_ ,” he adds when Veronica kicks him. Off her look, he simply repeats, “You did a nice thing.” 

“She’s not mad at you, Archiekins,” Veronica agrees. “It’s not something to be mad about. I mean - ”

She’s interrupted by Reggie, who strolls by their table, says, “Hey, V,” and winks at her before carrying on his way. 

Kevin’s eyebrows fly up and Veronica rolls her eyes, mumbles, “You dance with a guy one time… ”

“It was twice,” Kevin says, looking at her intently. “It was definitely twice.” 

Veronica huffs. “We’re discussing _Archie’s_ love life right now.” 

“No,” Archie interjects quickly. “No, no. We’re done with me.” He waves a hand toward Kevin. “Carry on.” 

“We’re not friends anymore,” Veronica tells him with narrowed eyes, but he knows that, in fact, they’re officially friends _again_ , and right now that, above all else, is what’s keeping him grounded. 

 

 

Archie’s sitting on the steps of his porch, trying to put the mess in his head on paper in the form of a song, when Alice Cooper’s car pulls into the driveway next door. 

Betty gets out of the passenger seat and then opens one of the back doors; her mother opens the other. After a few moments they each extract a car seat and then Polly gets out too. He can hear the soft, mewling cries of a baby. 

As she turns to go into her house, Betty spots him. She pauses, biting her lip, and then hands the car-seat-baby-holder contraption in her hands to her mother and makes her way across their lawns. 

“Hi,” she says softly, coming to a stop in front of him. She slips her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, looking almost bashful. 

“Hey,” Archie returns, setting his guitar down. “How’s it going, Aunt Betty?” 

She smiles. “Good, it’s good. They’re so cute. And Polly’s doing well.” 

“I’m glad,” he says, and means it. 

“Can I sit?” Betty asks. 

He nods. She sits next to him on the steps, the two of them looking out onto the street. It’s all very familiar - Betty at his side, wind in the trees. 

“Arch, I’m sorry,” she says, turning to look at him. “I didn’t want to hurt you.” 

“I know,” he sighs. “I guess we’re even now, huh?” 

Betty clasps her hands around her knees. “When - when I told you I loved you, I really did mean it. It felt - it feels sometimes like I’ve loved you my whole life. You’re in all my memories. You’d be my husband when Polly and I wanted to play weddings.” She shuffles her feet against the step they’re resting on. “When you turned me down, it wasn’t like I was looking to replace you. It just… happened.”

“With Jughead.”

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “He gives me something that I need, Arch. I don’t have the words for it.”

Trying to keep his voice light, Archie says, “I remember you saying something about love.” 

“It’s more than that,” Betty says. Last year’s dead leaves, hidden under the snow for so long, dance along the sidewalk in the wind. “I’m not perfect. I’m actually… kind of a disaster. And it’s like… it’s like, that part of me, I can give it to him.” She sighs. “Does that make any sense?”

Archie shrugs. “I hear love’s not supposed to.” 

“That was so sweet,” she says. “What you did for me. I’ll never forget it.” 

He makes a face. “You and the rest of the school.” 

She smiles. “Archie, I want you to be happy. I want that so, so much.” 

“I know you do,” he says. She always has. “You’re my best friend, Betty. I want you to be happy, too.” 

She tilts into him, her arm pressing against his, her cheek against his shoulder. His chest tightens and he wonders if this is the last time it will be like this for them, two kids on a porch in a small town, the scent of her hair so close to his nose, the feel of her body as warm and reassuring as his childhood bed. He turns his head just enough to kiss her temple. 

They stay there for a few more minutes as dusk begins to fall. Betty gives him this goodbye - it isn’t until he starts to move that she lifts her head, gets to her feet, and makes her way back across the grass. 

 

 

On a sunny June day, Archie comes home from a run to find Betty and her sister sitting on a thick blanket in the Coopers’ front lawn, the babies between them, waving small limbs in the air. Cheryl is there too, looking at the twins with the warmest smile he’s ever seen on her face. 

“Archie, hi,” Polly says when he slows to a stop. “I don’t think you’ve officially met Jason and Lizzie yet.” 

He looks to Betty. “You didn’t tell me you had a baby named after you.” 

She shrugs, faking modesty. Like Cheryl, she looks full of genuine happiness. “That’s what happens when you’re an _excellent_ sister, right, Pol?” 

Polly rolls her eyes halfheartedly. “Her name is Eliza, technically,” she tells Archie. 

Cheryl runs a fingertip tenderly across the baby boy’s cheek. “Doesn’t he look just like JJ?” she asks, looking up at him. 

Archie doesn’t see it - he thinks the baby looks like a baby - but he knows when to tell a white lie. “Totally.” Though neither of them looks like Jason Blossom, the babies are both cute, and he adds, “Congratulations, Polly.” 

“Thank you,” she says. “Want to join us?” 

“Sure,” he says, and sits down on the blanket with them. The girls coo over the babies and talk about tiny baby shoes and the sports the kids will play one day. When the little girl - Lizzie - starts to get fussy, Betty scoops her up, murmuring comforting words as she cradles her niece. 

Archie feels, ridiculously, like one of the characters in the dumb romance novels his mother used to read on the beach during vacations. He’s still in high school and sure, kids are great, but they are _far_ down the line for him - and yet the image he’s looking at, of Betty sitting in the sun holding a baby with wisps of red-blonde hair, makes him feel strangely wistful. 

“You are too much to handle, my little namesake,” Betty says warmly as Lizzie reaches for her hair. 

He clears his throat and says, as lightly as he can, “Must be genetic.” 

Betty grins over at him, causing her heart to flip, and Cheryl gets to her feet. “I’m going to go in and get the lemonade. Archibald, some help?”

 

 

It is very strange to stand in Betty Cooper’s kitchen and watch Cheryl Blossom pour lemonade into tall glasses. 

“You haven’t apologized for unceremoniously ditching me at prom,” she says. 

Archie braces his hands against the counter and makes a regretful face. “Right. I’m sorry, Cheryl, I really am. I was an awful date.” 

“You were,” she agrees. “I’ve never been to a dance with someone who made it their mission to use that night to declare their love for someone else.” 

“It was a crappy thing to do.” 

“Hm, yes.” Cheryl drums her perfectly manicured nails against the side of a glass. She dips her chin slightly, and her hair falls across her face like a curtain. 

In the face of her silence, Archie fidgets nervously. “We… went as friends, right? So it wasn’t like I… ”

She pushes her hair off her face in a sweeping gesture. “It wasn’t like what?” 

He fumbles for his words. “I - I wasn’t trying to hurt you.” 

“Archie, you have been there for me. More than once. I know that. I’ve enjoyed our… ” She trails off and begins again: “You’re in love with Betty. The entire town knows that by now. And I have no interest in waiting. In _pining_.” 

He blinks, a bit surprised, and realizes then that Cheryl, to put it in school kid terms, _like_ likes him. “Oh,” is all he can say for a moment. 

She places the glasses on a tray. “We should take this out.” 

Archie stops her with a hand on her arm. “Cheryl, I like you,” he says. It sounds lame; it falls flat. It’s not much of anything but Archie is trying - it feels like all he is doing is trying. “Not just… what we’ve been doing. I like _you_.” He is scared of her on occasion, and she still has her nasty moments, but he means it. He likes her, as a person. 

“I know you do,” she says, and her words are uncharacteristically soft - she knows what he means. She turns to head back outside. “And you have my number.” 

 

 

Summer seems to slide into Riverdale overnight, the sun hot, the sky blue and bright. Flowers bloom and children run under sprinklers in their front lawns. High school kids go the movies and enjoy comedies in the air conditioning. Archie hangs out at Pop’s with his friends, drinking milkshakes and laughing. 

It’s like a song he remembers his parents listening to when he was young: _summertime, and the livin’ is easy._ He mentions it to Josie once in passing and she presses her fingers to her temples, cringing at his lack of awareness of musical history. 

Veronica’s dresses get shorter during the summer and Archie admires her as she swings into the dinner in her wedge-heeled sandals and huge sunglasses. Betty sits cross-legged in the booth, wearing a sleeveless top and denim shorts. Jughead arrives with no leather jacket, no jacket whatsoever, just a dark t-shirt with his jeans and his ever-present beanie. 

In the summer, it all really does feel easy. Veronica bats her lashes in thanks when Archie buys her a strawberry milkshake and on the other side of the booth Betty cracks up when Jughead swipes whipped cream on her nose. That’s the thing that’s still not quite easy - watching them together, their private smiles - but Archie will take this, will take being with his friends, will take Pop’s feeling safe and happy again, less like a place where his life was almost ruined. 

Under the table, he sometimes texts Cheryl. He doesn’t proposition her, just sends dumb jokes or memes or other things he thinks might make her smile. Her response is almost always a row of eye-rolling emojis, but not once does she tell him to stop. 

 

 

One day, he arrives at the diner earlier than they’d all agreed to meet and goes over to where Jughead is sitting alone in a booth, typing on his laptop. 

“Hey, man,” he says, “Can I sit?”

Jughead waves a hand to the other side of the booth, closing his laptop and setting it aside. 

“I wanted to apologize,” Archie says, “for trying to serenade your girlfriend.”

Jug nods. “Not the highest point in our friendship.” 

Archie grimaces. “I feel like most of the low points lately have been my fault.” He studies his friend’s face. “You never got… angry with me about that, though.”

“Betty may have asked me to leave you alone about it,” Jughead confesses. “And… look, it’s been one hell of a year. We all deserve to be cut some slack.” He drums fingers on the tabletop. “I get it, I think. Sort of, at least. I used to be… worried, about the two of you. I kept waiting for a moment when you’d ask Betty for another chance. And I was pretty sure she’d give it to you.” 

Archie studies his friend’s face. “She says she loves you.” 

“Yeah.” Jughead half-smiles, though his eyes stay serious. “I love her, too. Of course I do.” 

Archie swallows and nods. He gives himself a moment to digest those words and then purposefully changes the topic: “How are… uh, things? On the South side?”

“They’re alright,” Jughead says evenly. “The school year was fine. Everything’s fine.” 

“It’s been nice having you back around here, Juggie.” 

Jughead nods, and this time the smile he offers sticks around. “It’s nice to be here.” 

Archie returns his smile and teases, “Feels like we should hug now.” 

“Does it?” Jughead laughs. 

“Or, even better - ” Archie tilts his head toward the approaching waitress, who sets five burgers down in front of Jughead. “I promised you many burgers a while ago. I haven’t really been delivering.” 

“Oh, Archiekins,” Jughead teases him, affecting a halfhearted swoon. “You sure know the way to my heart.” 

Archie huffs a laugh and reaches out to grab a fry off of one of Jughead’s plates. It’s something he’s missed so badly he hadn’t even admitted it to himself, hanging out with Jug, laughing and talking about nonsense, content in the well-worn patterns of their friendship. 

Day by day in the summer heat, everything starts feeling better. 

 

 

In almost a perfect full circle, the normalcy that they’ve managed to instill in their lives cracks apart violently on July third. 

Archie is in his room, passively watching Netflix and playing games on his phone, when he hears the sound of something shattering through his open window. By the time he gets to his feet he can hear yelling and high-pitched baby wails. He throws on a t-shirt and jogs down the stairs, rushing outside. 

It’s dark outside but the Cooper home is lit up, light pouring out of nearly every window, voices yelling inside. At least one of the babies is crying very hard, the sound rising above everything else. 

“I won’t _have_ it!” he hears Alice yell, and then there are more indecipherable words. 

He only has time to start across the grassy area between their houses before the front door is flung open and Betty walks out. Behind her, Archie hears the angry timber of Hal’s voice. 

Betty is wearing a pair of plaid pyjama shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt, her hair tangled and messy around her shoulders, carrying her floral blue backpack by one strap. He can see that she’s crying by the shake of her shoulders. 

“You can’t _do_ this, Mom,” he hears Polly say, her voice full of tears. 

Archie moves forward without really understanding what’s going on. “Betty,” he says, approaching her. “Betts.” 

She turns to him. Her eyes are stormy, her face messy with tears, one of her cheeks bright red. 

“What - did someone _hit_ you?” he asks. 

Betty’s whole body is trembling, but her voice is flat and controlled when she says, “My parents are kicking me out.” 

Archie stares at her for a moment, his brain in overdrive, before he concludes, “Because of Jughead.” 

Her lower lip quivers. “Yes.” 

“Betty!” Polly calls from the front doorway. She has a whimpering baby on her hip. “Betty, please don’t - ” 

Betty makes a breathless, choked sound. “It’s okay, Pol,” she calls back, a tear sliding down one of her cheeks. “It’s okay.” 

Polly’s face crumples as she looks at her sister helplessly. “Where will you go?”

Archie realizes this is a very good question. “Yeah, where are you going?” he asks Betty softly. 

“Polly,” Alice Cooper’s voice snaps. “Get inside this instant.” 

“FP’s trailer,” Betty tells him, matching his soft tone. 

Archie looks up at Polly, still crying in the doorway. “I’ll take her,” he says. “Okay, Polly? I’ll take her.”

Polly nods, though she doesn’t look any less devastated. A moment later, the door slams closed. 

Neighbours are peering out their windows, watching the family drama unfold. Archie takes Betty’s elbow and steers her toward his father’s truck. 

Fred is standing on the porch, looking somber. He hesitates for only a moment, and then tosses Archie the keys. 

 

 

On the drive to the South side, his eyes flick back and forth between the road in front of him and Betty in the passenger seat. She has her hands balled into tight fists and he can hear her laboured breathing. 

At a red light, he reaches over and touches her shoulder tentatively. She turns to him and he can see exhaustion written over the planes of her face. 

He doesn’t know what to say. He just squeezes his shoulder and keeps on driving. 

 

 

FP’s truck is already parked by the trailer. Jughead is leaning against it, and he straightens when he sees them. 

Archie turns off the engine but Betty doesn’t move. He looks at Jughead through the windshield and Jug looks back at him like he’s also not completely sure what comes next. After a moment he approaches the car, and Archie rolls down Betty’s window. 

“Hey,” Jughead says, leaning into the window a bit. He touches Betty’s cheek and then reaches down, uncurling her fingers from their tight fists. Her half-moon cuts are leaking blood. 

Betty doesn’t look at either of them, just stares down into her hands. For a minute everything is completely silent - no doors creaking open, no dogs barking, not even any wind. 

And then Betty begins to cry, great big breathless sobs in her chest, making strangled sounds that wrench at his heart. Archie unlocks the truck and Jughead opens Betty’s door, leaning into the car to put his arms around her. 

“Shh, I know,” he murmurs, holding her tightly. He puts his hand against the back of Betty’s head. “It’s okay, baby, I know.” 

Archie has never, in his life, heard Jughead use a term of endearment before, not even sarcastically, but he supposes he’s also never, in his life, driven Betty across town in the darkness with the mark of her mother’s slap on her cheek and blood in the middle of her palms. 

Eventually Jughead pulls Betty gently out of the car, and Archie reaches over in order to hand him Betty’s backpack, which is sitting on the floor. Jughead takes it from him, meeting his eyes. 

“Thank you,” he says. 

“Yeah,” is all Archie can manage to say, and he watches Jughead loop an arm around Betty’s waist, leading her up the rickety steps and through the broken screen door. 

 

tbc.


	5. Chapter 5

When Archie returns home, the Cooper house is quiet again and the neighbourhood appears at it always has, sleepy and innocent. 

His father is sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of whiskey in front of him, the corners of his mouth downturned. “How’s Betty?” he asks. 

“I don’t know,” Archie says honestly, dropping into a chair with a sigh. 

Fred gets up and gets another glass out of the cupboard and pours Archie some whiskey - less than a finger, but a couple mouthfuls. He hands the glass to his son and sits down again. “Those poor girls,” he muses. “If Alice isn’t after one, she’s after the other.” 

“Betty’s not even sixteen yet. She can’t be homeless.” 

“She’s welcome here, Archie, you know that, but I’m sure Alice would have plenty to say about it.”

“I took her to the tailer,” he tells his dad. “FP’s trailer.” 

Fred nods slowly. “Jug’s there?”

“Yeah.” Archie takes a drink. 

“Well, I guess it makes some sense,” Fred says. “Alice wouldn’t tolerate her little girl running straight for what she fought out of.” 

Archie’s head snaps up. “What?”

Fred pats his shoulder. “Get some sleep, kid. Hopefully we’ll all have clearer heads tomorrow.”

 

 

Archie sleeps late after the excitement of the previous night. He wakes briefly when the sun comes in through his window, but then rolls over with a groan, burying himself in his blankets for a few more hours of rest. 

He wakes again just after noon with a start, throwing off his sheets, and says, “Shit.”

 

 

After a speedy shower, Archie pulls on some clothes and drives to Thornhill. There is still some caution tape up on the property, and the house is a charred shell of its former self, but the graveyard is green and blossoming. 

Cheryl sits on her knees on the ground in a simple white dress with lace edging, head bowed. He walks toward her slowly, not wanting to startle her. 

“Cheryl,” he says softly, and she lifts her head to look at him. 

“Archie.” There are faint red rims around her eyes. “What are you doing here?” 

He shrugs. “It’s… July fourth.” 

“I heard what happened last night,” she says, and for just a second he wants to smile, because - of course. Of course she did. “I thought you’d be lending your white knight services to a different damsel in distress.” 

Archie shakes his head. “Would it be okay if I sat with you?” 

Cheryl shuffles to the left slightly. There is something about the smudges of dirt on her pale knees that makes him feel sad. 

He sits. “Are you okay?” he asks, and then shakes his head at himself. “Is that a stupid question?”

“Yes,” she says, but when she looks at him, her eyes are far from angry. 

 

 

Once he’s bought Cheryl an iced coffee (her order had been so complicated he’d had to write it on the palm of his hand) and dropped her off at her grandmother’s, he drives to the South side again and parks in front of the trailer. 

Jughead opens the door after he knocks and tilts his head, indicating that Archie should come in. It’s reasonably clean inside - Archie has seen it much worse - and Betty is sitting on the couch, still in last night’s pyjama shorts, now paired with a knitted sweater of Jughead’s. 

“Hey, Arch,” she says, trying to smile. 

“Hey,” he says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I wanted to see if you were… okay.” 

She shrugs, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Thanks for the drive. Last night.”

“No problem, Betts,” he says, examining her tired face. 

“Sit,” Jughead tells him. “You want coffee or something?” 

Archie shakes his head, and he sits down on the opposite end of the couch from Betty while Jughead settles into his dad’s armchair. He looks back and forth between the two of them - his two best friends, his childhood partners in crime, his musketeers. 

“What are you guys going to do?” he asks. 

Betty squares her shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” she says. “I’ll stay here, and I’ll get a job, and I’ll apply to Stanford for early acceptance and - and we’ll get out of here.” Her eyes drift over to Jughead. 

“What about school?” Archie asks. 

“I’ll stay at Riverdale.” Betty’s fingers clench, briefly, in her lap. “It’s not like my mom can kick me out of there.” 

“What about - how are you going to live here, with electric bills and stuff?” 

Her fingers unfurl and then tighten again. “We - we can handle that.”

Jughead blows out his breath. “Betty… ”

“We can handle it,” she repeats, with some ferocity in her voice this time. 

Jughead looks at Archie. “The Serpents will look out for us. If we ask.” 

“Oh,” Archie says. He rubs briefly at his tired eyes. 

“But,” Jughead continues, talking to Archie but staring at Betty, “anything they do for us comes with expectations, and once we’ve taken a couple days to calm down, we’ll realize how stupid it might be to chain ourselves to those expectations.” 

“Stop it,” Betty says. “I’m calm.” 

“You haven’t slept in more than a day and you’ve had five cups of coffee.” 

“That doesn’t mean I can’t think.”

“It means you can’t think _straight_.” Jughead blows out a frustrated breath and then softens his voice. “You’ve just been through a lot, Betts. You need to take a few days and really think this through.” 

“What other option _is there_ , Jug?” she demands. 

Archie’s been looking back and forth between the two of them like he’s watching a tennis match, and now his gaze settles on Jughead, who doesn’t volley back an answer, just looks at Betty with the corners of his mouth turned down and a pleading expression in his eyes. 

She scoffs, sitting up straighter. “Absolutely not.” 

He sighs again, running both hands through his hair. “Betty - ”

“No,” she says. “ _No._ ” 

Jughead leans forward, toward her, his elbows on his knees. “I can’t let you do this,” he says quietly. “I can’t, Betty, you’re - ”

“I’m _what_?” she asks fiercely, almost like she’s anticipating an insult. “Perfect Betty Cooper, who better run home and say she’s sorry and starting acting like this was, like _you_ were, just a phase?” 

Jughead looks at her intently. “I’m not worth this, Betts,” he says very softly. 

Betty’s got a look on her face like she’s ready to hit someone. “Like hell you’re not.” 

“You can’t throw away your life for me!” Jughead says, voice raised, his exasperation clear. 

“I’m _not_ throwing my life away,” Betty says through clenched teeth. There is something about the way she says it that makes it clear they’ve had this conversation a few times over. 

Jughead looks to Archie for support. “Tell her how ridiculous this is.” 

Betty narrows her eyes at Archie and he holds both his hands up, as if in surrender. “Okay, stop,” he says. “Stop.” He feels, bizarrely, like he’s watching his parents’ marriage fall apart all over again. He waits a moment, during which Jughead leans back a little and Betty pulls her knees into her chest, and then he looks at Jug. 

With a hint of an apology in his voice, he says, “You said she makes her own choices.” Archie shrugs. “She’s making this one.”

Jughead shakes his head, pushing his hands through his hair again, and Betty drops her feet back to the floor. 

“Juggie,” she says softly. “It’s me. You know that - it’s not just you, it’s me, too.” She swallows audibly. “I can’t be that girl anymore. I can’t.” Betty unfolds shaking fingers to display her palms, which are torn up and scarred, one particularly bad cut covered with a bandage. “It’s killing me.” 

With a heavy sigh, Jughead leans forward again and reaches for her hands, cupping them in his own. He presses her palms together gently, his hands on the outside of hers, and it looks almost as though they’re praying together. 

“You have to be sure about this,” Jughead says after a long silence. 

Betty weaves her fingers through his. “I am.”

 

 

There are fireworks that night. 

Archie picks up Veronica and Cheryl and drives them to the river. He sneaks glances in the rearview mirror now and then, checking that Cheryl’s alright with this destination on this day, but he gets no signs of a breakdown, only the briefest and smallest of smiles when she meets his eyes. 

Jughead and Betty are already there, and Veronica’s out of Fred’s truck before Archie even turns it off, rushing over to wrap Betty up in a hug. They cling to one another for a long time, talking quickly and quietly into each other’s hair, and pull apart with tear-stained cheeks. Archie presses the palm of his hand briefly against the small of Cheryl’s back, and then begins to take blankets and bottles of beer out of the cab of the truck. 

Kevin arrives a few minutes later, and he also gives Betty a giant hug, his eyes full of worry. Trying to prevent another round of crying, Archie hands him a beer. 

They sit in the bed of Fred’s truck, staring up at the sky. Cheryl says, “Scoot,” firmly to Veronica and the two of them end up tucked under the same red blanket. Betty sits between Jughead’s legs, leaning back against his chest, with a plaid blanket tucked up under her chin. 

“Does this mean we have to cuddle?” Kevin asks, and Archie laughs, tossing the blanket on his lap over Kevin’s knees as well. 

The sky lights up in bursts of red and yellow and blue. Archie stops watching for a moment and looks at his friends instead, at the way Cheryl’s staring upward so intently, like she’s waiting for something, at Veronica’s hand, which slips out from under her blanket and reaches toward Betty, the blonde’s fingers linking up with hers a moment later. He looks at Jughead, who is resting is chin on Betty’s shoulder, studying the sky passively, and at Kevin, who is staring at the fireworks but has an introspective expression on his face. 

There is a lump in Archie’s throat. He is scared of the finality he feels. 

 

 

Betty drinks one beer and promptly falls asleep, curled up against Jughead, her cheek on his chest, and the rest of them whisper about her. 

“I can’t believe it,” Veronica says. “I knew Alice Cooper was a witch, but she’s a hit a new level.” 

“I don’t know if it’s even… legal,” Kevin says, looking concerned. “You’re sixteen, Jughead. I don’t know if you can live on your own. What about your foster family?” 

“We’ll work it out,” Jughead says. His voice is raspy, tired. “As long as no one feels the need to tell their law-enforcing father.” 

“Obviously I won’t,” Kevin sighs. “But I don’t understand how you’ll manage.” 

“With our help,” Veronica says. She looks at the rest of them expectantly. “Right?” 

“Or the help of a certain gang,” Cheryl says, her arms crossed. 

His voice low but serious, Jughead says, “You know that’s not where you need to point fingers, if this is about your brother.” 

“Dude,” Archie says, frowning. “Come on.” 

“We all know you’re a Serpent,” Cheryl says. “We never talk about it, we pretend it’s not true, but we all know it.”

“And so what, Cheryl?” Jughead asks tiredly. “So what?” 

“So nothing,” Veronica cuts in before Cheryl can reply. “They’re our friends.” She looks at Jughead. “You’re our friends. We’re here for you.” 

Kevin nods. “Whatever we can do, we will.” 

“Thanks,” Jughead says quietly. The tone of his voice is pained and Archie knows what a difficult word that is for him to say. 

They’re all silent then, just a little bit of tension in the air, and he looks at Betty, her ponytail a little mussed, lashes fluttering over her cheeks as she sleeps, a picture of innocence, of peace. 

The lump in his throat won’t go away. 

 

 

The easiness of summer is gone. 

One afternoon while the Coopers are at a journalism conference of some sort, Polly lets Archie and Veronica in and they follow her up to Betty’s room, where they pack up some of her clothes in a duffel bag. 

Archie is pretty terrible at packing, so it’s mostly Polly and Veronica doing the work, folding up pink pastel sweaters and baby blue skirts, knee-length dresses and blouses with neatly pressed collars, one thick trenchcoat and one in a lighter material for fall and spring. 

He gets the other things he thinks Betty will want: her ratty old toy cat named Caramel, that she’s had for as long as he’s known her; the polaroids tucked into the frame of her mirror, some including his own smiling face; the dangly earrings he knows she loves because she inherited them when her grandmother died; the copy of _Beloved_ that Toni Morrison signed. 

As he’s zipping up the duffel bag, Polly asks, softly, “Do you think she’ll be okay?” 

He offers her a small smile. She looks so much like her sister, the same blonde hair, the same nervous hand-wringing, the same eyes full of hope. 

“Betty’s really strong,” he says. That will have to be enough. 

 

 

He delivers the bag to the trailer. Betty answers the door, but before either of them can say anything, a hairy white dog comes running toward him, barking, and Betty reaches down to hook her fingers into his collar. 

“Stop that,” she says sternly, and then flashes Archie an apologetic smile. “Sorry, we’re dog-sitting. Come on in. He’s harmless.” 

Archie steps inside the trailer; it smells like freshly baked cookies. “Where’s Jug?”

“He’ll be back soon,” Betty says, which is not quite an answer - Archie assumes this means that the exact truth is not something he wants to know. “Sit down,” she says. “Want a cookie?”

“Duh, Betts,” he says.

From the kitchen, she fetches him a slightly cracked plate with five chewy chocolate chip cookies on top. The dog sits right against his leg, suddenly his best friend. 

“Polly and Ronnie packed for you,” he says, tilting his head to the duffel sitting on the floor. “I’m sure they did way better than I could, but I remembered to put Caramel in there for you.” 

Betty smiles softly, sitting in the armchair and folding her bare legs underneath her. She’s wearing a wrinkly white sundress she must have shoved into her backpack on her way out of her house, her hair back in a braid. There is something about her - the lack of tension running through her neck, the softness in her shoulders, her hands not in fists - that seems very relaxed. 

“Thank you, Arch,” she says. She watches him scarf down another cookie and then adds, “For everything.” 

“You don’t have to keep thanking me. You’re my friend. If you need me, I’m here.” 

“Goes both ways,” she says lightly. She rolls her eyes when the dog whimpers at him. “You can let him lick your plate,” she tells Archie. 

He sets the plate down on the floor. “Hey, Betty, I - I know you know what you’re doing. I know you’re smart. But just… tell me if you ever need anything, okay? Just… tell me.” 

She looks different. It’s been that way for months now - he’s felt it, seen it - but it doesn’t startle him quite the way it did before. There are bags under her eyes, yes, but her cheeks are a soft pink, and he notices abruptly how beautiful she is, some new kind of beautiful, a sort of prettiness he’s never seen in her prior to this moment. 

She smiles at him again and she says, “You’re my best friend, Archie, and you always will be.” One eyelid drops in a wink, a surprisingly playful gesture for Betty Cooper. “Just don’t tell V.” 

Archie stands up to give her a hug. She smells, weirdly, a bit like Jughead, like maybe she’s been using his shampoo. Her bare feet brush against his when she steps close to him. “Thanks for the cookies, Betts,” he says, giving her a solid squeeze, and adds, more softly, “Freedom looks good on you.” 

 

 

Betty gets a job at Pop’s. She looks stupidly good in her yellow uniform, her hair up in a tight ponytail. She serves them all milkshakes with perfect, beaming smiles and pauses to chat with them when the diner’s not too busy. She seems tired, but not unhappy. 

Sometimes Archie stays there very late, if she’s working overnight, sitting in a booth with Jughead, playing cards and sipping coffee. If Pop’s is otherwise deserted, Betty will slide into the booth next to Jug, peeking at his poker hand and whispering in his ear, her eyes glittering mischievously. Archie always scowls and mutters about cheating, but his complaints are never serious. 

He always tips Betty too much, and she always tries to give him his money back, and he always says something dumb about how she refilled his soda _just_ when he was thirsty or how it was so nice that she brought his fries out before his burger was ready because he was _starving_ , and Betty will look at him, lips pursed beneath the Barbie-pink lipstick she wears when she works, with that _oh, Archie_ glimmer in her narrowed eyes. 

 

 

In early August, Archie picks Cheryl up at her grandmother’s house, opening the door of the truck for her because he knows she’ll like it. She looks impeccable, like always, and she’s wearing red, like always, but he can see that, in the blistering heat, a few strands of hair are sticking to her temples. That makes him smile - he likes picking up on the little pieces of her that aren’t perfectly placed. 

They have dinner at Pop’s, though _dinner_ is a strong word for Cheryl’s order of a bun-less burger with no side of fries. Archie orders them both sundaes for dessert and requests extra cherries on hers. 

Betty is their waitress, and he’s pleased to note that Cheryl is fairly polite to her, and Betty is the picture of professionalism in return, delivering food and refilling their glasses of water with smiles and efficiency. 

It’s when Cheryl goes to the washroom that Betty ceases to be Archie’s waitress and returns to being his friend, sliding into Cheryl’s empty side of the booth with wide and curious eyes. 

“Are you on a _date_?” she asks. 

“Honestly, Betts,” he sighs, “I have no idea.”

“Are you… interested? In Cheryl?”

“I care about her,” he says slowly. “I don’t know… how much more there is to it. She calls the shots.” 

Betty rolls her eyes. “Of course she does.” 

Archie looks at her, sitting there in her yellow uniform, her hair partially held back by a headband, and he remembers sitting in a booth with Betty so many months ago, her eyes bright and hopeful, remembers her saying _I’ve been thinking about us_. It seems like it’s been millennia since that night, Betty holding her heart out to him shyly while he looked up at Veronica, oblivious. 

Now, with that new confident tilt to her chin, Betty says, “Just… be careful with this, okay?” 

Archie nods seriously and mimes writing on his hand with an imaginary pen. “Do not… sing Taylor Swift… to Cheryl… in public place.” He folds his fingers into his palm. “Got it.”

“Arch,” Betty says on half a laugh. “I mean it. I know Cheryl’s… mellowed a bit, but she’s still Cheryl.” 

“I have no idea what we’re doing,” Archie tells her again. “But I will. I’ll be careful.” 

“Good.” She leans back in the booth a bit. For a moment, the exist in companionable silent, and then Betty says, “You know, that extra-cherries move was pretty suave. My shift’s almost over but I’m kind of dying to see how this turns out.” 

Archie tries to scowl at her, but he can’t help his fond smile. Cheryl rejoins them then, looking fairly unsurprised to see that Betty’s taken her seat. Betty apologizes and hops up again, and Cheryl slides back into the booth, plucking a cherry off her sundae. 

“Polly and I were talking about bringing the babies here for lunch tomorrow,” she says in a bored voice. She flicks her gaze to Betty. “If you’d like that.” 

Betty grins, seeing right past Cheryl’s affected carelessness. “I’d love that,” she says, and turns her grin to Archie briefly, wiggling her eyebrows, before she leaves them alone. 

 

 

Archie and Cheryl stay at the diner for a while, having a surprisingly easy conversation. She eats her sundae very slowly, licking melted ice cream off her spoon. 

Sun fading from the sky, Archie feels so secure at Pop’s again, like he’s safe in this bubble of worn-in diner seats and neon lights while the world outside flies by. He steals another bite of Cheryl’s sundae and glances out the window, seeing Betty leave the diner for the evening, jogging over to Jughead, who’s walking up to the door. She says something and Jug laughs, shrugs out of his leather jacket and tucks it around Betty instead. 

In his booth, Archie watches them go, Betty’s hair a shining spot of brightness, a halo of blonde, in the last dregs of daylight. 

 

 

fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all of you who have read this, left kudos, and commented. Your feedback has been really great. <3
> 
> Because I am Riverdale trash, I'm toying the idea of writing a follow-up to this from Betty's PoV. If that's something you'd be interested in, let me know!


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